Whirligig

by Paul Fleischman

  Dinner at the hostel was a boisterous affair, conducted in several languages. He and Emil had bought some frozen enchiladas, which they heated in the kitchen’s overburdened microwave. It seemed strange to Brent to see men carefully mincing garlic and sautéing vegetables. He was a stranger to the stove. Nor did the dinner conversation at this table resemble anything heard in his house. Mixed in with descriptions of Sea World and the beach were long discussions of world affairs, sometimes in raised voices. Brent was surprised at how much the other guests both knew and cared. Politics had never come up at home. Brent listened unobtrusively as diners and topics came and went. Finally, he slipped out himself.

  The concertina player was nowhere about. The house seemed much emptier without him. Brent observed travelers writing postcards, recalled that he’d bought some, and realized he had no one he wanted to send them to. He was a planet on which there was no other life as yet. Then he felt the harmonica in his pocket and thought to himself, Let there be music.

  He chose the back lawn, more private than the rockers on the front porch. He read the booklet’s introduction (“The instrument you hold is a full orchestra in miniature…”), stared at the photo marked Figure 1-A, snorted at the player’s jacket and cuff links, read three times the detailed instructions (“Raise your harmonica. Now moisten your lips. Fill your lungs, then partially exhale…”), set the instrument to his mouth, and produced his first note (“Congratulations…”). By the fading light, then by flashlight, he pored over Lesson One, trying to find C at the fourth hole without looking, tripping over the C scale’s quirky pattern, laboring with scant success to get a single note instead of two. He put it away, discouraged, glaring at the words Play Instantly! on the booklet. He turned off the flashlight. He tilted his head, found the summer triangle, a familiar face to him now, and felt better.

  In the morning he found a paperback copy of Two Years Before the Mast by his bed, with Emil’s address written on the bookmark. He’d left very early according to the clerk. Brent looked as though he were leaving as well, tramping out the front door with his pack on his back after breakfast. Feeling a fraud, he walked three blocks, turned to the right, walked four more, and came to a park he’d glimpsed the day before. Here he could work on his whirligig undetected by the other guests.

  He claimed a picnic table, laid out his tools like a surgeon, and flipped through his book. He made up his mind to vault ahead from the simplest style he’d built in Washington and decided on the spouting whale, operated by a propeller and rods. The book’s previous owner had been there before him, leaving penciled annotations like footprints. The sight of them cheered Brent. He sketched the whale on wood, erased, revised, then realized Lea wasn’t in it. He considered giving the whale her face, then painting her in its belly as Jonah, then looked through the book, saw a design with a mermaid, and decided to change its hair to black and transpose it to the top of the spout. He didn’t know what had given him the nerve to try such an ambitious project. The sunny morning made anything seem possible.

  By dinnertime, not even close to half-finished, he felt like a gasping marathon runner, wondering why he’d made himself do it. The whirligig ended up taking three days spent in trying to balance propeller blades, bending rods, threading rods, wasting wood, starting over, walking a mile and a half to a hardware store for supplies and advice. He learned the hard way to paint in the morning, so that the surfaces would be dry by the time he packed up at the end of the day. He swore at the book, then at himself for making foolish mistakes. It was the harmonica that saved him. Playing it during breaks and at night, improving at blowing through a single hole, progressing from “Hot Cross Buns” to “Tom Dooley” to “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,” he added drop by drop to his store of perseverance, which supplied both tasks.

  Despite the difficulties, the whirligig was absorbing, blocking everything else from view. The characters from his first life—allies, enemies, potential girlfriends—who’d once loomed like giants were now barely visible, distant figures disappearing over the horizon. He still noticed the cars he’d lusted after and heard snatches of songs linked to that era. His reactions felt distanced and ghostly. He had no desire to revive that life. It had all been crumpled in the crash. He no longer gave any thought to his clothes. He was an outcast, part of no group, and no longer had anyone to impress. Only when the wind blew did he feel watched—by Lea, looking down on his work.

  It was late afternoon when he finished it. After testing it dozens of times, he looked down at the book’s instructions, took his pencil, and wrote in the margin, “Added mermaid from page 87 on spout,” followed by the date and his name. He felt he was conversing with the book’s former owner. He now faced the problem of where to set it up. He didn’t think it would last long in a public park in a big city. Then he remembered seeing a set of wind chimes on the hostel’s porch. He made his way back and asked the clerk if he could offer it as a gift, in thanks for being taken in.

  “Sure. Bring a bit more life to the front.” He viewed it. “But no need to go buying presents.”

  Brent mounted it then and there, trying out three different locations and making various minor adjustments. The wind that sprang up each afternoon was blowing, sending the whale’s white spout up and down, with the mermaid on top like a bronc rider. No guests chanced to be out front. Brent snapped a photo and disappeared.

  When the subject of its origin came up at dinner, Brent was as silent as the others. Afterward, though, on the porch, he was not. He claimed one of the rockers, took out his harmonica, and began work on memorizing “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” It had been sung briskly back in grammar school, the refrain cheery and rousing. He now saw it for the lament that it was. Lea lay across an ocean no boat could cross. He practiced the song over and over, scratching into his brain the pattern of which holes to draw on and which to blow. He finally got it down, closed the book, faced Lea, and played it through perfectly. Champagne bottles are broken on ships’ bows; this felt like the whirligig’s christening. A couple sitting on the front lawn clapped.

  Early the next morning Brent moved on.

  Bellevue, Washington

  It’s the first day of fifth grade. Everyone wants to impress Miss Rappalini. Except me. I’m not really listening to her. Man, does that feel good.

  She says something about starting our journals. I’m drawing the Seattle Mariners’ logo on my desk. They’re playing a game against the Yankees today. The pregame show starts in fifteen minutes. My radio is in my T-shirt pocket, hidden by my long-sleeve shirt. In thirteen minutes I’ll begin working the earplug cord down my sleeve. When it comes out at the cuff, I’ll tape it to my palm. Then I’ll prop my elbow on my desk, lean my head against my hand, and stick the earplug in my ear. Paradise!

  Suddenly, everyone’s opening up journals. We’re supposed to write about our summers. Great. My summer was like being sick to your stomach. First, you feel worse and worse. Then you think you might have to throw up. Then you know you have to. Then you do.

  I write, “I had a wonderful summer.” There’s no way I’m going to tell her the truth. I try to think what else to say. I touch the radio in my pocket. I imagine that I’m the guest on Bob Baker’s Mariners’ pregame show.

  ANNOUNCER: Anthony, great to have you with us.

  ME: Thanks, Bob. But call me Tony. My mother’s the only one in the universe who calls me Anthony.

  ANNOUNCER: Well, let’s just hope she’s not listening.

  ME: Don’t worry. She thinks sports fans are lunkheads and time-wasters. And she’s specifically told me that your voice makes her fillings ache.

  ANNOUNCER: Thanks for sharing that with us, Tony. Now then, tell us about your summer.

  ME: Well, Bob, I had my birthday in June.

  Which is actually a lie. Nobody knows my real birthday. I was left at an orphanage in Korea. They must have just picked out a day. Not that I remember even being there. My parents adopted me when I was a baby. This birthday, I asked
for a new baseball mitt, a remote-control car, a Nintendo, and a gift certificate to Sam’s Sports Cards. I received two shirts, a microscope, a new music stand, and a Sarah Chang CD.

  ANNOUNCER: Sarah Chang, the young violin virtuoso, of Korean descent, like yourself?

  ME: That’s right, Bob.

  ANNOUNCER: Rookie of the Year in ninety-two. An All Star every year since. Holder of single-season records in harmonics, triple stops, and left-hand pizzicato. The kind of kid who always goes out and gives a hundred and ten percent.

  ME: That’s her.

  ANNOUNCER: And tell our listeners at home—do you play violin too?

  Do I ever. Suzuki lessons starting when I was four. Listening to the tapes day and night. A big party to celebrate when I finished Book One. Then came the violin camps in the summer, group recitals, more and more pieces to review, crossing the bridge to Seattle twice a week for lessons. And now Youth Orchestra’s starting up again. It’s not that I’m so good. I’m not. Some other kids my age who take lessons from my teacher are way ahead of me. But to my mother I’m not average. I’m Korean. I can do anything, if I apply myself. She can barely whistle, but who cares. She’s pure American, from Kansas. Nobody expects her to know the Paganini Caprices. But me, I get up in the dark for my forty-five-minute practice before school, with my door open so she can hear. Then I do another forty-five minutes after school, while my friends are playing baseball in the street. I’d quit in a second, but she won’t let me.

  * * *

  I write, “I played my violin a lot.”

  ANNOUNCER: That’s one tough training schedule.

  ME: That’s not all, Bob. My parents signed me up for science camp all July. Nine to three. It was practically as bad as school.

  ANNOUNCER: And your father, isn’t he a scientist?

  ME: Right, Bob. An electrical engineer. And then there’s my mother’s grandfather, also named Anthony. He built the first radio transmitter in Kansas. They named me after him, to inspire me.

  ANNOUNCER: Both wearing the same number, so to speak. Must make you proud.

  Actually, I’d rather be my sister, Kelsey. She’s not named after anybody. She’s adopted too, but from Peru. Talk about no pressure, except maybe to learn to spin llama wool. She’s in the first grade and my parents still haven’t made her pick an instrument yet. They say she’s not mature enough. They also probably won’t bug her about winning her class Scholarship Award the way they have with me.

  I chew on my pencil for a while. Then I write, “I went to science camp and learned a lot.”

  ANNOUNCER: What about on the leisure side, Tony?

  ME: Well, Bob, I went to one Mariners game. One. They lost. And we took a family camping trip for the first time.

  ANNOUNCER: Tell our listeners what it felt like. Were you nervous? Excited?

  ME: Buying all the stuff at REI was fun. And learning how to set up the tent.

  Which I figured might come in handy if I ever wanted to run away from home. We only went a little north of Seattle. It was kind of like a practice trip. We were right on the water. It was great. Then I found two ticks on my throat. Then I couldn’t sleep because my sleeping bag kept sliding off my mattress pad all night. But the worst part was the whirligig. It was a girl playing a harp, like in an orchestra. It was in this tree at our campsite. And since it was breezy weather that weekend, the girl’s arms were almost always turning. So naturally my mother had to say, “Look how she practices all the time, Anthony. A musician has to be dedicated. That’s how she’ll get into Honors Orchestra. And then the Seattle Symphony.” As if she’s a real person. My mother took about twenty pictures of it, some with me underneath. I hated the guts of whoever put it there. When no one was looking I picked up a rock. I’m good at baseball, especially pitching. I threw it at the girl. I hit her. It spun the whole thing around, but it didn’t break. My mother must have heard the sound. She caught me about to throw another rock. I was under arrest. I had to stay in the tent the whole rest of the day. Talk about breaking the pledge.

  ANNOUNCER: For our listeners who may not know, what is this “pledge” you’re speaking of?

  ME: Glad you asked, Bob. Basically, it’s like the Pledge of Allegiance, except that it’s only for people of Asian background. And you don’t say it out loud, but only inside.

  ANNOUNCER: Could you give us a taste of it?

  ME: Sure thing, Bob. “I pledge allegiance to Sarah Chang and all other Asian-Americans that I will be quiet, hardworking, and polite, succeeding in all things through dedication—”

  ANNOUNCER: So you, for instance, unlike the other kids, would never call Miss Rappalini “Miss Ravioli” behind her back.

  ME: Exactly, Bob.

  ANNOUNCER: Then throwing the rock, if I understand you, was breaking every commandment in the pledge.

  ME: You said it, Bob.

  In my journal I write, “We went camping. It was fun.”

  After the trip, we had more and more arguments about practicing. My mother said I should play for longer since school was out and I had more time. Naturally, she had one of the whirligig photos blown up and framed. She took down a poster of Ken Griffey, Jr., with a bat on his shoulder to make room on my wall. Every day she’d say, “Remember the harp player, Anthony—always practicing!” It was almost like I was John Henry, in that song with him racing against a machine.

  ANNOUNCER: There’s a trivia question for our audience. Who won the track-laying race between John Henry and the machine?

  ME: The machine. We sang it last year. John Henry dies.

  ANNOUNCER: You, Tony, were in his spot. Tell us what happened.

  ME: I didn’t die, or I wouldn’t be here, Bob. Instead, I dropped out of the race.

  My mother started working part-time. I was supposed to tape my practices when she was gone. She didn’t always get around to listening to the tapes right away. Sometimes they’d pile up. I’d tell her I’d practiced, then give her a tape from a few days before. I was supposed to be working on this piece for a big recital in August. I just sort of quit. I tried not to think about it. I told my mother I’d be playing something I already knew at the recital. I’d gotten away with the tapes—so why stop? When I told her I was going to the park down the street, I was really out with Ronnie Sneed, sneaking under the country club fence, looking for golf balls. We’d clean them up and sell them to a junk shop. Then we’d use the money to play video games. Or buy candy. Or go to the movies. He’s the one who taught me how to buy one ticket and see all the different movies at the multiplex. Including Death of a Stripper, rated R. Which is where one of the theater guys found us. Naturally, he called our parents. This was the day before the recital.

  I get up and sharpen my pencil. Then I write, “I played the Bach Gavotte in D Major at a recital last week.” Which is as much of a lie as the rest of the journal. My teacher, Mr. Mintz, was accompanying me on piano. I could tell he knew I wasn’t ready by how slowly he started us off. Even so, right away, I forgot the two grace notes. Then I messed up on the trill and the G-sharp. Mr. Mintz started again, but I actually played worse the second time. My hands were sweating and the strings felt slippery. I forgot to play the repeat. Then I forgot the bowing. Then I forgot the notes. It was like a car breaking down. We quit without ever playing the second section. People made themselves clap. My mother just looked down at the floor.

  ANNOUNCER: Wow. A new American League record for errors committed in a single composition. Must have been tough facing the fans after that.

  ME: Let’s just say we didn’t stay for the refreshments.

  ANNOUNCER: Guess you have to just put it behind you and work twice as hard to get your skills up to major-league standards.

  ME: Actually, Bob, that’s not how it’s worked out.

  I had a long talk with Mr. Mintz, alone. He’s an old man. He didn’t seem mad at me. I told him everything, even about the whirligig. Then he called my mother into the room. He told us this Chinese saying, about how rest gives stre
ngth to activity. That’s why there’s night after day. And winter after summer, when the plants stop growing. He said the whirligig worked the same way. If it turned all the time without stopping, it would break.

  ANNOUNCER: Do you remember Coach Mintz’s exact words?

  ME: You bet, Bob. “The harp player plays her harp. Then she rests. Then she plays again.” He said he thought it was an excellent idea to have a picture of the whirligig on the wall, to remember this. Then he looked at my mother and he said, “After speaking with Tony, I believe that he’s ready for a rest.”

  I’d broken the pledge. Now my mother broke hers. After Mr. Mintz talked to her alone, she actually let me quit violin. She also promised she wouldn’t talk about the sixth-grade Scholarship Award. It was wonderful. Almost too good to be true. But that’s the thing about throwing up—it’s yucky, but then you feel a lot better.

  I stare at my journal. Then I write, “The summer turned out to be pretty good.” I don’t have to be the best anymore. I celebrate by erasing the e in pretty and putting in an i. We don’t get graded for spelling in our journals. I look at the word and almost crack up.

  Then I look at the clock. The pregame show is starting. I pretend to scratch under my shirt and start feeding the cord down my sleeve.

  ANNOUNCER: That’s one heck of a plan, with the earplug and all. I’d say maybe you take after that famous great-grandfather of yours after all.

  ME: Thanks, Bob. Maybe you’re right.

  Apprentices

  “He yanked her appendix out right quick. He said it was a time bomb, just fixing to explode. Then while he was poking around, he noticed something odd about her liver.…”